William Watson: Obama gets second chance to fulfill promises

Obama gets second chance to fulfill 2008 promises

The opportunity to reform energy, electoral policies

So. After two years, $6-billion and millions of frequent-flyer miles, it’s Barack Obama. America’s first black president becomes its first black president to win a second term. Congratulations to him. He won nasty and he won small but he won.

So what happens now? Apart from stating general goals, such as boosting manufacturing exports and employment and hiring 100,000 more math and science teachers, the president was exceptionally and, you’ve got to think, intentionally vague about his plans for a second term — except to be the anti-Romney, that is, not a bloodsucking former business consultant who wanted to be president only so he could cut taxes for his polo buddies.

Entering his second term, a president’s fancy turns to thoughts of legacy. Even George W. Bush, who beat John Kerry by only 2.4 percentage points, tried hard but failed to re-make Social Security with a private component. Mr. Obama’s plan to hire more teachers and juice manufacturing may be worthy — though giving into manufacturing fetishism really isn’t — but they don’t put you up there with the Roosevelts and Reagan, to say nothing of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln.

A constitutional amendment would be historic. Mr. Obama really should try to eliminate the Electoral College. It made sense in the 18th century, when actual electors exercised independent judgment about who should be president and vice-president. But now all it does is focus candidates’ entire attention on a handful of states smart enough to be closely divided. Switch to a system of direct election with the winner of the most votes becoming president, and the election will become national, as it should be. The nine or 10 battleground states would be opposed but you only need three-quarters of the states — 38 — to amend the constitution.

Failing electoral reform, Mr. Obama presumably wants to aim high. A carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system as part of the first genuinely worldwide plan to deal with global warming, is grand enough to be tempting. Four years ago Mr. Obama talked about making the oceans recede — which is ironic since the Atlantic surging into New York and New Jersey is what turned his own personal tide last week.

But the genius of the American system is that the president doesn’t decide all on his own. And unless the Chinese and Indians introduce serious carbon measures too it’s not going to happen. So far they seem unmoved by Mr. Obama’s speechmaking ability.

So how about this for a plan? Mr. Obama could be uniter rather than a divider, could do politics differently, could change Washington and bring about real cooperation between Democrats and Republicans. Sound familiar? That was the hope-and-change promise of 2008. But it proved so popular it made itself unnecessary: Mr. Obama swept to power with a Democratic majority in both the Senate and House of Representatives. This created the temptation, to which he understandably succumbed, to go ahead with an historic health care reform whether he got cooperation or not.

Health care for all Americans was, as Joe Biden whispered in the president’s ear at the signing ceremony, “a big f—ing deal.” The Democrats had been fighting for it since the Truman administration, if not earlier. Given a choice between keeping his promises and achieving something historic, Mr. Obama opted for historic. Adapting Romneycare was meant to get Republicans on board but didn’t. No matter. The Democrats passed it anyway and the Supreme Court declined to strike it down — presumably because the Chief Justice declined to cause a constitutional crisis in an election year. It’s certain to be tweaked over the years but, with Mr. Obama reelected, it’s here to stay. Canadians who think medicare is the big difference between us and the Americans had better think again.

What program could attract bipartisan support? Mitt Romney’s, of course. It worked with Romneycare. It could work with tax reform and energy independence, too.

Mr. Romney’s plan to cut tax rates and eliminate credits, exemptions and deductions got lots of favourable comment during the debates and has the support of every economist in the universe. More relevantly, it was the basis for an historic reform in 1986 that brought Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill, the Democratic Speaker of the House, together. The cuts don’t have to be 20% across the board, as Mr. Romney favoured (he lost, after all) but reforming the U.S. tax code in a way that raised revenue, increased economic efficiency and started the long, hard slog of deficit and debt reduction would encourage the kind of economic success that makes Bill Clinton so popular on the campaign trail — a popularity Mr. Obama can’t help but have noticed when sharing the platform with him.

North American energy security is another big Romney idea that appeals as a way of reducing the geo-strategic influence of the Middle East. Fracking of natural gas will do the heavy lifting. But the Keystone pipeline, which most observers thought stood a good chance of getting Mr. Obama’s approval after the election, would help, too.

Would the Republicans co-operate? Mr. Obama can’t run again. If he has a successful second term, that doesn’t hurt Republican chances in 2016 as much as a successful first term would have hurt this year. Presidents with successful first terms just don’t lose.

And there’s the immediate imperative of the fiscal cliff, with tax increases and spending cuts coming into effect Jan. 1 unless Congress and the president agree on something else. Rational people don’t jump off cliffs. And standing at the edge concentrates even politicians’ minds wonderfully. Co-operation is essential now in a way it wasn’t in 2009.

For the good of the country and for his place in history, Mr. Obama needs in his second term to fulfill his promises of 2008.

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